Murphy's Law
by Late For The Sky
Summary: Life is interesting for the residents of the apartment building, even more so when you're not the ones blowing things up. Jack Built AU.


_Murphy's Law: If anything can go wrong, it will._

* * *

The words "It's going to explode!" should never be a daily occurrence, Diane thought as she scrambled for cover underneath the dining room table, but when you lived on the same floor as people who thought it fun to build highly unstable machinery for a lark, it soon got to be second nature to dive for any handy shelter.When she'd first moved in, they'd seemed normal college students, such as her. Of course, when Diane had signed the lease agreement with one of her good friends from campus (Kate Heightmeyer), there'd been nothing on that overly complicated piece of paper to warn the two about all-night Halo-3 tournaments and experiments that regularly blew fuses.

To say that the residents of the apartment building were odd would be a shame to miss out on some more accurate adjectives, such as "eccentric", or perhaps "insane". Or maybe even "crazy ass-freaky smart -explosion loving-loonies", which was Diane's personal favourite. Kate, a third-year grad student majoring in psychology, seemed pretty calm about it, though Diane had noticed that her flat-mate had taken to spending a large amount of time in all-night study groups over the past few months.

Being a second-year grad student herself (she was going for her degree in pathology); Diane Biro could see the lure in escaping the chaos that seemed to surround the old apartment building. But as much as that was tempting, she'd much rather stay in her apartment and finish her work there. It was odd, but when she had tried going to the library to have some quiet (and reliable lighting), Diane hadn't for the life of her been able to focus on her microbiology textbook. Only when she got back to her apartment (Number 302) was she able to get something done.

After waiting a few moments, Diane poked her head out from underneath the table, sandy blonde hair mussed by her sudden dive. So far, so good. Then a muffled _whumph_  
sounded from down the hall, and the lights snapped out. A general chorus of "Sam!" was heard, as well as muffled cursing in Czech from the floor below. Sighing, Diane reached for the flashlight taped underneath the table, removing it from its resting place with a hefty yank. God, why did there have to be so much duct tape on it? She blinked as her eyes readjusted to the light coming from the now-powered flashlight, and then got up from the floor, padding across the wood in her stocking feet. The door opened with a creak, and Diane continued on, playing the beam over the floor in front of her. For no apparent reason other than to be contrary, the 'light suddenly dimmed and then failed completely.

Diane swore softly; of all the things to go wrong! Now she was stuck in the middle of the hallway in the close-to-pitch dark. Fantastic.

'Thanks, Murphy.' She muttered, thwacking the end of the 'light against her palm. It came back on again, the bright beam lancing into her eyes. With a startled yelp and some rather creative swearing about the flashlight's suspicious parentage, Diane failed to notice she had gathered a small group of amused onlookers. It was only when she stumbled into John and nearly knocked him over did she realise she wasn't alone.

'Oh God. Sorry.' She apologised quickly, blinking the tears from her eyes as she backed up. 'I didn't see you there, which I suppose is obvious. Um. Sorry?'

Don't worry about it,' John replied with an easy smile. 'No harm done. Who're you?'

'Oh God, here we go again.' Rodney muttered, rolling his eyes.

'Diane Biro. Apartment 302.' She added for clarification, and then waved towards the relevant door.

'Oh, the quiet ones.'

'Uh, sure, I guess.' Diane agreed, feeling slightly nervous at all of the attention being directed to her. It wasn't as if she was a wallflower, but she was more used to dealing with people who didn't talk back to her. Overhead, the lights flickered and then came back on, bathing them in illumination.

'Oh look, the lights are back on. I'll just be...going. Nice meeting you.' As she scampered back to her apartment and shut the door behind her, Diane could've sworn she heard Rodney say, 'Was she wearing striped toe-socks?' She cringed, and then went back to her computer, planning not to come out the apartment for the next week.

Murphy could just deal.


End file.
